When The Sun Rises In The West
by T'Reilani
Summary: No one ever expected Cybertron to end like this. Movieverse one-shot. Slight Prowl/Riella.


**A/N: I wrote this late at night after losing a family member to illness this past week, so it's very, very angsty. I'm sorry. And yes, the title is shamelessly borrowed from "Game of Thrones". The track with the same title was my main soundtrack for writing this, so it seemed appropriate. **

**Riella and Melody are my OCs. Can't claim anybody else.**

_**When The Sun Rises In The West**_

Iacon was a beautiful city once, long ago. Before it was rebuilt into a military base, it was the capital of Cybertron. The center of politics, and science, and art. The resting place of the AllSpark. Even during the war, it was a refuge. Battles raged outside the Iacon walls, but never entered. It was the ultimate fallback. A place of safety when nowhere else was safe.

But that was then.

Now?

Now, Iacon is nothing more than a mass grave.

Optimus Prime forces himself to look away from the crumbling city. Away from the flaming towers, where the heat from the dying sun frozen in the west has already reached them. Away from the bodies that already litter the streets, lit by the eerie red glow from the sky above. Away from the ruins of his home.

"Prime?"

Jazz is right beside him, visor dim with exhaustion and pain. The silver mech has been limping since the battle two days ago, though he hasn't seen a medic yet. He's refused. Every senior officer has. There are too many others who need their few medics. It's already too late for most of them. It's been too late for a long time.

Elita.

Sentinel.

Alpha Trion.

Too many.

Optimus realizes he still hasn't answered his SIC, still waiting patiently. "Yes, Jazz?"

"There's a problem." Jazz's voice catches in his vocalizer, maybe from overuse, maybe from tears, maybe from smoke inhalation. They've all started to blend together in the last few days. "Last one of the patrols we sent hasn't come back. That's First Aid, Fireflight, Melody, Prowl an' Riella."

Optimus nods slowly, looking at the last of their spaceships. It's past capacity. Everyone they could find is on board. They need to go. Wait any longer and it may be too late. But leave without them? Unthinkable. "Which way did they go?"

"Southeast corner quadrant," Prowl rasps, fighting the words out through a haze of static. "Last place. Fan out. Check and call in. Go."

"Copy." First Aid sounds better than Fireflight, who barely manages a faint cough that sounded vaguely like an affirmative. Riella answers _Copy _over the bond instead, motioning for Melody to follow and stay close.

Prowl takes the center route, scanners running at their widest range, searching for any sign of life. There's none, no matter how many houses he scans, no matter how many back-alleys he checks. And as his plating begins to heat up uncomfortably and buildings around him smolder in the red sunlight, he's not surprised.

Only eight streets down, Prowl realizes, a few moments too late, that they can't get any closer. The safe zone is shrinking; if they try to push further toward the towers, they may just end up like the dozens of offline frames he's counted on the way here.

"Fall back," he grits out through the comm system. It's barely working. He knows Riella sensed his decision before he gave the order – she and Melody are already pulling back. But the others? "Fireflight. First Aid. Do you copy? Fall back."

The comm system crackles and hisses, but First Aid's voice makes it through. ::…Copy…::

Prowl tries to keep a steady pace. He's running too low on energon to push himself now. But then the building next to him – a family home, judging from the structure – begins to heat up as the cool zone shrinks even further back. His plating burns, and he can't stop to calculate. He runs.

Riella stumbles, skidding on hot metal. There's a signal in her HUD. Someone is alive back in that alley. Someone she can still save. She turns and stumbles again and moves, back toward the heat and the flames and the life sign.

"Don't!" Melody yells at her. Worried. It's a risk. Riella knows that. But she can get the survivor and herself out. She's good. Just one moment.

She turns the corner and she's facing a cannon the size of her head.

Decepticon.

Crazed Decepticon, her processor notes. You would have to be, to pick a fight now.

That's an academic point when she's about to die.

She barely manages to avoid the first shot. It blasts a hole in the wall across the street, edges already hissing and melting. They're right on the edge.

"Don't do this! Come with me! We can save you!"

The Decepticon doesn't care. It – she can't tell gender – swings around and slams into her, knocking her backward and sending her skidding across the metal. Close to the flames. Too close. The hot metal buckles and her left foot sinks in. She can't stay upright.

The cannon swings up again. Riella braces to dodge. She's going to have to rip her foot out of the metal. It's going to hurt.

But she doesn't have time before a voice screams over the crackling flames and popping metal. The cannon swings around.

The Decepticon fires.

Melody's graying frame lands on the ground.

Seconds later, the Decepticon's joins hers as Riella's blade tears through its spark. She doesn't care. She doesn't notice. Prowl's half-sprinting toward her, shouting questions. She can't answer. She can't speak.

_Melody. _

Not this. Not another. Not today.

Sideswipe stares down the landing ramp. It's too crowded to stand anywhere else. The Ark-19 wasn't made for this many 'bots.

But there's still five more they have to fit on.

"Hey." His twin elbows him. "Look, I'm sure..."

Sunstreaker doesn't have to finish the sentence. They both know. Before, they knew the team would come back. Prowl and Riella _always _came back.

But now? Everything's different. Cybertron is dying. Iacon is on fire. Everything they thought would stand forever is falling.

There are no guarantees anymore.

"Yeah. I know." Sideswipe elbows his twin back and keeps staring down the landing ramp. "Long-range comms still down?"

"Uh-huh. The radiation completely fragged all of 'em." Sunstreaker grimaces as another flare goes up in the southeast quadrant. "This…" The gold twin's normally confident voice almost, _almost _shakes. "This is it, isn't it? This…" He stares out at the burning horizon where home used to be. "There's no going back."

Sideswipe can only nod.

The twins glance at each other at the same moment, asking the same question without saying it out loud. _How many of us are going to make it out of this?_

Not everyone.

Without consciously thinking about it, the two step closer to each other, until their shoulders are brushing up against each other. They will survive this. Their family will survive.

"Get back in and strap down, mechs." Jazz's voice cuts through the silence, static crackling and rasping around the words. "Takeoff in ten."

Both twins look at him at the same moment. "What?" Sideswipe's voice cracks. It's the smoke inhalation. "You can't…they're still out there!"

"They're comin'," Jazz snaps shortly. "Get in."

It's the command voice. Exhaustion and pain and static can't mask that. Jazz means business. The ship is leaving. Prowl and Riella might be on it. But if they're not…

No. They will be.

Sideswipe almost takes one last look at Iacon. A final look at his entire world burning.

"Don't," Sunstreaker growls beside him. "Don't look. It won't help. Iacon's gone."

His brother is right. Sideswipe knows that.

But as they step down into the cargo bay, he wishes he'd looked anyway. Just to see home one more time.

Because he's never going to see it again.

Optimus turns to scan the horizon, searching for any sign of his team. The flames are getting closer and closer. The heat is rising dangerously fast. They need to go.

He has to give the order. He has to leave them.

But before he can say anything, the figures of his team stumble out of the smoke and toward the landing ramp. Burned, smoke-stained, and battered, but alive.

All but one.

He can't see who Prowl is carrying until they reach the ship, when First Aid hauls Fireflight up onto the ramp and pushes the Aerialbot inside. Riella stops before the ramp, stumbling and sliding – her foot looks broken. There are tear tracks in the grime on her face.

Melody is dead.

The sweet, innocent intelligence specialist, who looked after sparklings and researched everything out of sheer curiosity and wasn't armed with anything heavier than an ion cannon, is dead.

Optimus, for once, isn't sure what to say.

Isn't it enough that Cybertron is dying? Must there be more senseless deaths?

Prowl and Riella don't say anything. Just a brief glance between the two, and then Prowl gently sets Melody's offline frame down. They know there isn't room on the ship for anyone who is past saving. And Optimus is grateful to both of them, for not making him give the order to leave her.

Riella lets Prowl slide his arm around her shoulders and help her up the ramp. And Optimus knows that it is time to follow.

They need to go.

"Close the ramp." His voice catches on the pain. "Engine room, report."

::Locked down and fueled, Prime.:: Wheeljack sounds better than most, if not good. ::Ready for flight on your command.::

Optimus gazes out through the narrow window beside the landing ramp. It's hard to give the word. "…Go."

The engines rumble under his feet as the ship begins to move. On the ground outside, the flames spread to the docking bay.

::Shields up,:: Wheeljack announces shakily. ::Strap in.::

Riella's voice trembles as she stares out the opposite window, refusing to move away. "It's morning."

Prowl nods, gently pulling her back as the ship moves. "Yes."

"One last dawn." The blue femme laughs bitterly, static hissing in her vocalizer and making the words almost unintelligible. "And the sun. Rising in the west." Her optics flicker and dim. "As a child I read a story where the world ended when the sun rose in the west. I never thought…"

"…It would truly happen," Prowl finishes quietly, almost choking on the words. "No one did."

Optimus blinks, forcing himself to look away as the ship lifts off. The glow of the burning planet is almost blinding.

No. No one ever thought Cybertron would end this way.


End file.
